05-29-2023, 06:32 PM
Creationists are even more... troubled in their explanations. Evolution in some way resembles card deals; any result is highly unlikely, but there will certainly be a hand. Any five-card poker hand has one chance in 2,598,960 of happening; to get the chance of any single bridge hand from happening for one is one in 635,013,559,600. But you will get one.
All sorts of things could have created a different universe and planet. If the Chixculub strike had never happened (let us say that it struck the Moon instead), then the masters of the planet might be giant, flightless parrots instead of us. (Parrots are smart!).
If they want to give credit to God for the Universe being what it is, then they would be wiser to discuss the laws of mathematics and physics, especially to the periodic law of the elements and the binding law of nuclear energy. The top row of the elements consists of only two which must be gases down to very low temperatures. If solids or liquids, then the stars would become as a rule much bigger and would go more often into supernova explosions to the detriment of life. The binding curve of energy stops stellar nucleosynthesis at 56 nucleons, which makes elements heavier than iron comparatively scarce. One of the elements that we an be delighted that is scarce is arsenic, the element that figures all too often in murder fiction of a certain time. Another is krypton, which would flood the atmospheres of planets (and prevent life by ensuring that there would be nothing to breathe) if zirconium were the end of the line for nucleosynthesis in normal stars.
All sorts of things could have created a different universe and planet. If the Chixculub strike had never happened (let us say that it struck the Moon instead), then the masters of the planet might be giant, flightless parrots instead of us. (Parrots are smart!).
If they want to give credit to God for the Universe being what it is, then they would be wiser to discuss the laws of mathematics and physics, especially to the periodic law of the elements and the binding law of nuclear energy. The top row of the elements consists of only two which must be gases down to very low temperatures. If solids or liquids, then the stars would become as a rule much bigger and would go more often into supernova explosions to the detriment of life. The binding curve of energy stops stellar nucleosynthesis at 56 nucleons, which makes elements heavier than iron comparatively scarce. One of the elements that we an be delighted that is scarce is arsenic, the element that figures all too often in murder fiction of a certain time. Another is krypton, which would flood the atmospheres of planets (and prevent life by ensuring that there would be nothing to breathe) if zirconium were the end of the line for nucleosynthesis in normal stars.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.